A charitable trust set up in Tamil Nadu ostensibly to help members of the proscribed Al Ummah outfit has been named by police as having been pivotal in the planning and execution of the April 17 bomb blast outside a BJP office in Bangalore.

In documents placed before court along with the chargesheet in the case, the Bangalore police has said that the outfit, the Charitable Trust for Minorities, provided as much as Rs 1.5 lakh used in the funding of the blast.

Al Ummah members were accused in the 1998 Coimbatore blasts, targeted at BJP leader L K Advani. The trust was set up in 2010 ostensibly to help them fight their legal battles.

Citing statements by some of the 14 accused named in the chargesheet in the BJP office blast case, the Bangalore police has stated that the trust has emerged as a central figure in terrorist activities in Tamil Nadu following the ban on Al Ummah.

"After the ban, they (the accused) have been avoiding identifying themselves with the outfit (Al Ummah) but have been clandestinely active in unlawful activities. Now the accused persons have associated themselves with another outfit called CTM (Charitable Trust for Minorities) to carry out terrorist activities," states the chargesheet.

According to police records, the trust was created by a splinter group of Al Ummah after its founder S A Basha was found to have been using the organisation's funds for his own legal defence in the 1998 Coimbatore blasts case, while ignoring dozens of others arrested for it. The blasts had killed 58 persons ahead of an Advani rally.

One of the accused in the Bangalore case, police documents state, has said that the Charitable Trust for Minorities played a central role in funding several radical groups in Tamil Nadu, including remnants of the SIMI and polically active groups like the Popular Front of India and its Tamil Nadu affiliate.

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